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Banana Trunks to Grow Bags: The Future of Sustainable Hydroponic Media · Hydroponics Daily

• 0:00
  Hello there and welcome back to
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  Hydroponics Daily, your go-to podcast for everything soilless cultivation.
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  I'm your host, Dr. Russell Sharp, and as I say, I'm the founder of Utrema Limited.
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  We make novel fertilisers like liquid gold, or gold leaf as it's called in the
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  US, and biostimulants and biofertilisers, biopesticides.
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  We don't make or get involved with growing media, but we are interested in growing
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  media because they are a key aspect of hydroponics.
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  And I read a report today about a new type of growing media,
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  so I thought I'd go into it.
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  Now, it is made from the biomass of bananas, so the trunks of the banana plant.
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  Now, I've mentioned before on this podcast that bananas don't grow on trees,
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  they grow on plants. They are a herb, they're herbaceous, they don't have any woody tissue.
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  That means that once they, and they're monocarpic,
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  which means that after they've flowered and fruited they die
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  like many crops however for such a large
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  plant that leaves the growers with a problem you've got
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  this massive dead trunk on in
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  your field and what do you do with it well the normal
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  answer is that you just leave it to rot over many.
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  Many years and it might get in the way of your banana production
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  so a guy called christopher curzon and his
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  company banana bloom have or
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  the south which is part of southeastern fiber corporation
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  have found a way and patented a
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  way of turning this into grow media for
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  horticulture so as an alternative to
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  rockwool and cocoa and things like that and there are a number of advantages
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  over that so the the company originally
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  focused on exporting bananas from central america and
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  then in covid they pivoted towards this because they
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  obviously their supply chains were disrupted and they found that
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  lots of people were in need of good grow media
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  so they they started the company banana bloom and
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  they've as i say they've they've shifted their technology towards this
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  to make substrates and they've got a patented process that's
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  not to mean that nobody else can make grow media out
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  of bananas you just make have to make sure you don't infringe their patent and
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  so i'm not sure i've not read their patent so i don't know what it actually covers
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  but yeah so they produced a
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  product and obviously they think their grow media is the
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  best grow media and it's better than cocoa and other options like peat and wood
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  and one of the key aspects is that it's hydrophilic so when it dries down and
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  you pack it into a new suction packet vacuum packet when you get it to the other
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  end to your nursery or to your grow room.
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  When you add water to it, it instantly absorbs water.
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  Whereas something like cocoa or peat, once it's really, really dry,
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  it becomes hydrophobic and you have to add a wetting agent or a surfactant like
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  yucca extract to get it to re-wet. So the,
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  big advantage there of the banana grow media.
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  And now banana trunks are made, they're not made of wood because they're not
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  a tree, but they are made of lots and lots of very strong fibres,
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  hollow fibres, almost like reinforced concrete.
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  And so those fibres have really good durability and integrity,
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  so they don't break down quickly, even for a hydrophilic natural plant-based material.
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  So the fibrous cellulosic material can be shaped and re-wetted and go through
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  a number of growing cycles, resisting collapse and compaction over time.
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  Now, I've never tried banana-based grow media.
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  If Chris wants to send me some, I'm more than happy to try some in our grow
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  tent. It'd be really interesting to try it.
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  So as I say, that's one advantage. Really high water holding capacity.
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  Now, that might be a disadvantage in some hydroponic systems where the growing
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  media is just getting too wet the wood there's not enough air in the growing
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  media so one of the options is to mix it in with other growing media so you
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  could have like a 12 banana.
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  Mix the 50 peat it's
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  not peat sorry i don't want peat in there cocoa some perlite and things
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  like that so it could be a good addition to
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  a to a mix rather than just growing on its own so um
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  that's a good one and obviously you're making use of
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  a waste product so there's there's a
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  renewable circular economy type
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  vibe to it and if you're in north america then obviously
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  the carbon footprint of getting that to north american growers should be a lot
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  less than getting cocoa fiber from sri lanka and places like that so it doesn't
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  require additional land or irrigation doesn't require calcium nitrate to be
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  flushed into it like cocoa fibre does to get rid of the sodium.
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  So there's another other economic and environmental problem.
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  Benefits of it there so as i say
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  could can potentially be used as a standalone grow media
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  perhaps in things like carnivorous plants that need to
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  be kept nice wet and boggy i'd probably use it
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  as a mix in there with other materials it
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  does contain a small amount of nitrogen potassium and
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  phosphorus obviously when we think of bananas everyone's obsessed with
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  potassium but it does contain a small amount of mpk but
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  obviously the grow media is not breaking down quickly
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  so the release of those nutrients is very slow and so
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  you shouldn't replace your fertilizers with this this is not a fertilizer this
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  is very much a growing media so you might be some companies might sell it as
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  a soil conditioner but it's certainly not a fertilizer so if you'd like to know
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  more then check out banana bloom and as I say the company that makes that is called.
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  Southeastern fiber corporation of north carolina or
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  carolina seems to get a lot from carolina there's
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  a it's a big hotbed of agricultural research around rally isn't
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  it pharmaceuticals and agricultural research in north
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  carolina still still still trying to get a listener in west virginia so if you
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  could know anyone in west virginia then please do send them the hydroponics
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  daily because they're the only outlier them in puerto rico but i'm not too bothered
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  about puerto rico because it's not mainland u.s i want to complete my map so
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  that's been Hydroponics Daily for today.
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  An upbeat article about banana fiber, possibly coming to a grow shop bag of
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  grow media near you soon. Who knows?
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  Thank you very much for listening. As always, if you found any joy or knowledge
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  in this episode, then please do leave me an Apple podcast review if you're on
• 6:35
  Apple, because it shoots us up the charts.
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  If you're on any other podcast platform, chill out, relax, and I'll see you
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  on the next episode. Thank you. Goodbye.